Attendance

Attendance is important. The SRVUSD has launched an Attendance Awareness campaign to inform families about the importance of regular attendance at school. Students realize their maximum success when they are present at school and in their classrooms every day.

There are more than 31,000 students enrolled in the SRVUSD. To be totally transparent, our attendance rates are high. In the 2016-2017 school year, the SRVUSD attendance rate was 97.01%. In the 2017-2018 school year, the SRVUSD attendance rate was 96.89%. The daily rate of attendance is a calculation of the enrollment on each day divided by the number of students who actually attended on that day. We are proud of our attendance rates, but we can also improve. Better attendance rates mean greater student success and more money for our district, which you will recall, is experiencing declining enrollment.

It is important to understand that the SRVUSD is the 4th lowest funded unified school district in California. Every dollar counts in being able to deliver the quality programs that we want for our students. The SRVUSD receives its funding from the State of California based on a formula that is calculated using the number of students that attend school in our District. This number is often referred to as ADA -- which stands for Average Daily Attendance. So, to get money from the State, it is not enough to just be enrolled in the schools, but the students must actually be present in class.

Since we know that student success is tied to regular attendance and we know that State funding is tied to regular attendance, we know that having every student in school every day needs to be our goal.

Of course, sick students need to stay home. But in the SRVUSD, many of our students’ absences can be attributed to reasons other than illness. Some of those reasons include:

Extended long weekends or breaks

Travelling

Non-CIF/SRVUSD operated sports, arts and other events or tournaments

Additionally, what you may not know about attendance is that the State does not count excused absences in the ADA for funding purposes. If a student is absent for any reason, we do not get funding for that student for that day. Each day that a student misses school, the District loses approximately $70.

By providing information about the importance of regular attendance, we hope that families will take a fresh look at their child(ren)’s attendance habits and begin to understand the impact that missing even one day can have on their education and on the District, as a whole.